


Sugar and Spice

by morosophe



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Blindness, Dialogue Heavy, Dialogue scares me to death, F/M, Femininity, Fluff, Gen, Growing Up, Law School, Rule 63, girl!Matt Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 03:32:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5190560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morosophe/pseuds/morosophe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up blind, Catholic, and Murdock in a world in which "Matty" is short for "Matilda."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sugar and Spice

**Author's Note:**

> Marci Stahl is definitely the surprise star of this piece.
> 
> Trite title is trite and boring. I'm aware. (Subtitle is "The ABC of Being a Girl," because McGinley seemed somehow appropriate, in case you're wondering.) Also, I do know I'm terrible at dialogue. (And yet I wish I'd had the guts to go dialogue-only.) I really can't write Stick at all--I just don't have a crass enough vocabulary or a bitter enough view of the world, I guess. There go my hopes for a Stick-centric sequel, either in my "Evisceration" universe or in my sentinel series.
> 
> I love to hear from people! Drop a line, let me know what doesn't work, what does, whatever.

“Excuse me, is this room 312?”

“No, sorry. The sign came off, and I guess you didn't catch the correction on the markerboard, but this is room 316. I think 312 is around the corner somewhere? Maybe?”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“What for? Trust me, it's not like I mind when a hot chick presents herself at my door before noon. Better yet, I'm getting to meet one of my new neighbors. Ish. I figure, we'll let our respective hangovers subside, meet again when my breakfast has settled in my stomach and you can look at me without the shades, and try this whole first impression thing again.”

“That might be a very long wait,” Maddy informed the stranger, smirking halfheartedly and shutting his door again. Had he been... hitting on her? Maybe? Well, that was definitely different.

* * *

“Good girl, Matty,” her father crooned to her. “Just like that. Now, remember, only do this if you have to. You understand? You're way too pretty and smart to end up looking like your old Dad.”

Matty disagreed. She knew she wasn't pretty, with her thrift store clothing and her boy-cut hair. Besides, Jack Murdock was the best person she knew, and the strongest; even his fading black eye didn't make him anywhere close to ugly. Still, he was her dad; it was his job to flatter her.

“Okay, now, show me how to do the old one-two!” she demanded.

“All right, all right. I gotta say, it makes me happy to think that my little girl will know how to defend herself when she gets old enough for boys to start noticing her.” Matty didn't let her blush at the thought distract her from forming her fists, properly, as her father had shown her.

* * *

Despite the fact that their first meeting was only outdone in awkwardness by their second, Foggy Nelson persisted in finding reasons to spend time with Maddy Murdock. Often they just hung out in one or another of their rooms; other times, he managed to drag her to what he claimed were mandatory social events.

“I just... don't like parties,” Maddy admitted the second time he'd asked, when it seemed like he was taking the rejection personally. “They're just not my thing.”

“Wait, not at all?” he'd asked, apparently bewildered by the thought. “This isn't a kegger or a rave, Maddy, you won't have drunk people tripping you up all night. There will hopefully be actual adults for you to adult with.”

“I just... The only people who seem to want to hang around the blind girl at a party are the ones who... Do you know how much harder it is to guard your drink when you can't see? And I don't particularly want to spend a lot of time with that kind of person, anyhow.”

“All right, I've made it my mission now. My quest, even. You are going to a party, and you are going to have fun, and I'll make sure you don't have to worry about any jerks along the way.” It took more than one attempt, but he crowed over his victory when she was actually reluctant to leave a fascinating conversation with fellow 1Lers at a bar late one evening. In retaliation, she called him nothing but “Sir Foggy” for a week.

* * *

“The mind controls the body. You remember that, Matty. Remember that, or you'll be just as useless lost in hormones as you were crying in bed. So many people in this world, chasing a high or a fairy tale, might as well be blind, deaf and paraplegic for all they manage to get done. Don't get caught out like that. At least you won't ever turn off your brain just because of the way someone looks, like half the world seems to.”

* * *

“You know, you really make a suit look good. I always look like the highest I could aspire would be ambulance-chaser.”

Maddy cocked her eyebrow skeptically at Foggy. She found that hard to believe. He was extraordinarily popular for someone dressed like an ambulance chaser at Columbia Law School. Then again, even the fact that he spent a lot of time with someone once described as a “human black hole” didn't seem to slow him down. What was a wardrobe, next to that?

“It's not the wearer. It's the suit,” she finally relented. “I helped out a tailor a while ago, and he gives me a discount in thanks.”

“Ah,” Foggy nodded. “I just nodded sagely. Someday I, too, will be a Columbia grad, able to afford bespoke suits. Then I'll ask the name of your tailor.”

“Meanwhile, you probably don't have my issues with off-the-rack,” Maddy pointed out drily.

“That's certainly true,” he agreed. “Whoa, there's another idea! My roommate is out getting himself tailored for his new life as the earl's recently rediscovered son. Complete with full-on _Princess-Diaries_ -style lessons. Also, learning how to manage the estates. No wonder he's only home to sack out. I swear, I haven't seen him awake since the first week of class.”

“Let me guess... Is his last name Fauntleroy?” Maddy cracked, split between gratitude that Foggy wasn't going to pity her for the inevitable difficulties that came with her blindness; amusement at the latest explanation for Foggy's inexplicable lack of roommate; and relief that, even if she had ended up with yet another roommate who didn't want anything to do with her, at least she wasn't alone.

* * *

“Oh, Matilda. Are you going to be attending the winter dance?”

“No, Sister Mary Catherine. I don't know how to dance.”

“Well, why should you let a little thing like that stop you? Almost nobody knows how to dance at your age, you know. That just means you need to find some way to learn. I'm sure we can find someone to instruct you.”

“No, please, ma'am. Nobody... Nobody has asked me. And I don't think I'd care much for it, anyway.” 

“Well, dances are certainly different now than they were when I was a child. I can understand if you don't want to join in. But you needn't think nobody will ever be interested in you, Matilda. You may not believe it, but junior high really is too early for some of these things. You'll find that things will change quite drastically in the next few years.”

“What if they don't? What if I'm just really an ugly duckling, Sister Mary Catherine?”

“You're asking a nun this, Matilda? Well, if you're really a duckling, then I say, do what you were made to do. Quack loudly, and fly far. You'll never be ugly to God if you do what He put you here to do.”

* * *

“Hello, my name is Marci Stahl.”

“Hi. Matilda Murdock. You're dating Foggy, right? I think he's gone to get ice cream.” With a group of undergraduates on a midnight run in the snow, no less. She refused to believe that there really was a Double Coffee Chocolate Coffee Ice Cream, although it would fit in with the rest of the absurdity of his trip.

“He wishes. No, actually, I was looking for you. You seem like you are a.) intelligent and b.) paying attention in our Constitutional law class, and I thought we might be able to study together. If you're anything like me, you're ready for another mind to bounce things off of right about now.”

“Sure? I mean, yes, we can do that. Come in. Welcome!” Maddy wasn't used to guests. She hoped her roommate hadn't left a horrible mess on her side of the room; it's not like Maddy ever went over there.

“Look, you don't need to be so nervous. To make things simple for you, you dress up nicely when you're in a suit, but I just don't swing that way, so no, I won't sleep with you.”

“I don't swing that way either. Why does everyone always assume that?”

“Oh, I just assume that everyone always wants to sleep with me. It's the only way to go through life.” As she dug out her class notes, Maddy wondered what it would be like to be as confidently attractive as Marci was. Then she reminded herself that that was probably vanity, and in her case, the kind of vanity that was a chasing after the wind. She should know better than that, by now.

* * *

The thing Matty—no, she was Maddy now, she had to remember—hated most about high school, trumping even the smell, was the gossip. High school girls were vicious, and high school boys not much better. Maddy heard far more of it than she wanted to, but the worst were the rare occasions when she knew that she was the center of conversation. Because what they whispered about other people was a mixture of guesses, wishes, and outright lies, for the most part; what they whispered about her was true.

“Charity case.”

“Really uptight. She's like a human black hole, honestly.”

“Does she think she's a boy?”

“Do you think she knows...?”

“Nah, she has no idea what she looks like. I guess that's the advantage to being blind.”

Inwardly, Maddy cringed, but she reminded herself that the mind controls the body and forced herself to sit up all the straighter for it. She didn't know what these petty, shallow people wanted from her. She probably wouldn't be able to achieve it even if she tried, and she wasn't going to bend herself to their judgement to do so. Changing her nickname to the more feminine “Maddy” was as far as she was willing to go.

* * *

“So why didn't I see you at Professor Levin's cocktail party?”

“Oh, um. Foggy didn't ask me?”

“I happen to know that you two _aren't_ dating. Besides, he's not in any of her classes, is he? He may not have even known about it. Whereas I went and made an excellent impression as an extremely intelligent and motivated first year. So why weren't you there? Chatting with you would have made a nice change from warding off the advances of overconfident second years all evening.”

“I... really didn't have a thing to wear?” What was with Marci? She hoped she wasn't about to make her some kind of pet project. The last thing she wanted was career advice she already knew delivered from the patronizing lips of the girl Foggy was interested in.

“Okay, I'm going to call your bluff,” Marci announced. “Which one's your closet?” She didn't wait for an answer, and quickly found it. There was a long silence, as Marci picked through her clothes and Maddy tried to ignore her by focusing on her notes.

“Wow, you weren't bluffing,” Marci finally admitted. “How is it that you have no middle ground between tailored suits and total slob? All you needed was one little black dress and maybe a festive scarf. It's not like you don't have the heels already.”

Maddy kept quiet, hoping that Marci would just let it go, but Maddy eventually lost that game of silence chicken. “I'm not very good at shopping. I like suits because there's not a lot of room for variation with them, and what there is, I can safely leave up to my tailor, who wants me to look good because he's a professional. Otherwise, all I have to go by is feel, and the end result doesn't necessarily match well. Or match me well. Besides, it's such a pain to put the descriptive tags in. I finally just gave up and ordered black jeans online; most any tops will go with those.”

“Wow,” Marci said. “You just did a lot of talking, but all I heard was, 'I desperately need you to take me shopping, Marci.' And boy, have you come to the right place! I'll have you know, my taste is impeccable. Look at who I'm befriending right now!”

* * *

College was both better and worse; worse because, for some reason, everybody decided she was either lesbian or asexual, and better because they didn't much judge her for it. Still, as time went on, she decided that she'd missed a turn somewhere back in her adolescence, one that sighted girls had easily made. Even with all of her advantages, she could never quite figure out how to project any image beyond either “helpless blind girl” or “smug know-it-all.” Remembering Sister Mary Catherine's advice, she decided to go with “know-it-all.” At least it didn't make her eternally the victim of one bad day.

* * *

“We made a deal, Murdock. You're not backing out now,” Marci asserted.

“How was that a deal? You strong-armed me into everything!” She'd managed to do it in such a way that nobody involved dared condescend to her, though. Well, beyond Marci's usual level of "What fools these mortals be!," anyhow. That was something.

“Yes, but at least I paid for it. That was the deal.”

“Well, I'm not letting you pay for anything else. But today was kind of fun. You're sure I look all right?” Maddy really needed to stop fishing for reassurances. That was never attractive.

“I thought you'd learned to trust me at least a little by now, Maddy. But since that's obviously not enough...”

“No! Shh!” Maddy begged.

“Hey, Foggy!”

“Oh, hi, Marci, Maddy. You two are back early from break.”

“Oh, we've been enjoying some Christmas presents today. Spa day!”

“Spa day plus, it looks like. Nice haircut, Maddy, I like it. And Marci, I don't think your fingernails could look more like talons if you were trying.”

“Aw, how sweet, Foggy. They do look like they're dripping in the blood of my enemies, don't they?”

“Actually, Marci, could I have a quick word?”

“All right, Foggy Bear. Talk to you later, Maddy. If nothing else, I _will_ be calling you to set up a shopping day. Don't worry, we'll steer well clear of any perfume counters.”

* * *

"You know, I don't know why you're playing so coy. Apparently you finally got the itch to explore a little in college, but I wasn't expecting to chit-chat for two hours when you invited me for 'coffee.'"

"I think there's some kind of misunderstanding going on here."

"What's there to misunderstand? You take a different hot, wasted chick home every night on weekends. You dress like _that_. I know you're maybe testing the waters to see if you can slide down the Kinsey scale, try something new, but that doesn't mean you have to revert to junior high here. You're hot, and were confident enough to ask me out; own it, and let's stop wasting our time over lattes. I'm kind of curious to see what it'll be like to bed a butch myself."

Any desire Maddy had to explain things dried up, just like that. Obviously, the... gentleman... in front of her had very different expectations. Which she should have anticipated, she reminded herself fiercely. She just wasn't the kind of girl to get a romance, or maybe she would have gone to prom. Instead, the best she could manage was being some kind of fetish, attractive and tough but ultimately vulnerable. She'd gotten so sick of it that she only went to social events anymore to prevent _other_ girls (and, a few times, boys) from downing roofies, or to get them safely away when they were past the point of consent. It's why she had Campus Safety on speed dial, even after Pi Sigma Sigma had been put on suspension and the French House forbidden from giving any more parties.

But she didn't need Campus Safety right now. She just needed to get out of this date. She had started it, by giving up the dream of being wooed and asking the guy with the awesome voice out; now, it was time to finish it, by utilizing some of that frank and clear communication he obviously enjoyed so much.

"Thank you, Brad, I've changed my mind," she said, hopefully calmly, and stood up, instead of allowing him to continue either speaking or moving his foot against her. If he kept up with either one, she was going to introduce him to the fists her father had taught her to wield. For pretty much this situation, she remembered; she couldn't imagine that Jack Murdock would disapprove in the slightest, even though she knew it was her own fault for coming into this with the wrong hopes.

"But..." Brad protested, then stopped. Something in her face or stance must have warned him. She hoped that only the rage was coming through, and not the shame, though the knot in her gut felt equal parts of both. "Okay, bye," he said, and quickly walked off. "Maybe she really is bi... polar," she heard him mutter as he pushed through the exit.

Maddy sat down again, a little abruptly. She still had some of her drink left, warm and sweet in her cup. She was going to make the most of it. This was the closest she would ever get to romance, after all.

* * *

“Marci, how could you do this to me?”

“What exactly are you accusing me of, Nelson?”

“You know exactly what, _Stahl_.” Maddy resolved to stop eavesdropping on what was beginning to shape up as a lover's spat. They clearly didn't want her listening, and were entitled to their privacy.

“Are you really yelling at me for giving Maddy a day to feel pampered and pretty just because you weren't involved?” Of course, catching her name made it almost impossible to ignore the conversation, despite the sinking feeling that she really didn't want to know what her friends had to say about her behind her back.

“No, no, of course not. I'm yelling at you because it seems like this was stage one of a movie-style makeover, and that's just cruel.”

“How is it cruel? Don't think you can stand the end result?”

“No! I won't be able to! Marci, Maddy has always been hot, but I know what you're doing, and you're going to get her coding as approachable. Do you know how many guys will start asking her out?”

“So man up and ask her out yourself then!”

“I have! Do you even know how many parties I've taken her to? I saved up and took her to _Les Miserables_! We went to the Irish Hunger Memorial! I even took her skating at Rockefeller Center!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I dunno, I got desperate.”

“It's like you have no setting between 'downer' and 'schmoopy.'”

“Maddy liked the dates! She gets passionate about social justice. And she was surprisingly graceful on the skates. She just... refused to see them as dates. She's friendzoned me, Marci, so hard. Which is why I asked you out in the first place.”

“I told you, Foggy Nelson, I am no one's consolation prize.”

“And I told you, Marci Stahl, I can take a hint from a lady. I stopped hitting on you, didn't I? And I'm _trying_ to get past this thing with Maddy.”

“Don't. Don't you dare 'get past this thing with Maddy' because you think she's been dropping hints. There's a difference between dropping hints and not catching clues, and I think it's honestly the latter with her. Let me work on her a little more. I'll even narrate actions for her, like you do. Except I'll include the things you leave out, like 'Foggy's staring at you like a creeper. You should wear that sweater more, it totally short-circuits his brain.'”

“Marci!”

“Meanwhile, you will be patient with her. I know you want her as a friend even if she doesn't want to date you, so you will let me drop hints in her ear, let her have fun being feminine, and ask her out for Valentine's Day during the first week of February. Make it clear that it's a date-date. If she says yes, you're golden. If she says no, pretend you just got caught up by the season, get drunk and cry on someone else's shoulder, and buy her a BFF bracelet like the Xander Harris you'll be.”

Well, Maddy thought, that gave her a month or so to come to grips with the idea that Foggy really wanted her like _that_. That seemed about right. She was demonstrably slow at catching on to these things, after all.

But she certainly didn't want a BFF bracelet. For one thing, she had a feeling it would clash with her manicure.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic took over my brain for the last day. I don't do Nanowrimo, but consider this my contribution if I did. As always, comments, including constructive criticism, are very welcome.
> 
> And yes, I _am_ still working on "Let's Keep Evisceration as a Last Resort." I'm just... really, really stuck.


End file.
